Eighteen women voyaged with their husbands aboard the Mayflower in 1620. Only four were still alive a year later. I doubt any of them decided for themselves if they would go on that dangerous journey or remain behind, not knowing when – or if – they’d ever see their husbands again. We know very little about most of them; some not even their names. Seventeenth-century women had few choices or rights. Most went from the […]
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Birthday Reflections
I recently had another birthday. The number is unlisted, less out of vanity and more out of the reality that nasty people harvest such information against me. Suffice it to say, I’ve had more birthdays than either of my parents and one of my grandparents. Everyone has birthdays, and most are fairly routine events. Birthdays are funny things. As a child, I eagerly anticipated the day it would take two digits to record my age. […]
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Journal Power
My first journal was the diary my parents gave me for Christmas when I was leaving childhood and entering the world of adolescence. It had a leather cover with a little strap that locked it shut, perfect for a young teen girl growing up in a household with two annoying brothers. My oldest diaries I came upon as I was doing a deep purge of things in preparation to move back to Ohio a couple […]
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4th of July, 2024
Yesterday was the annual flag-waving, grill-cooking, parade-watching, and fireworks display celebration inspired by events over 200 years ago. I spent it at a performance of The Lion King. This week’s post is an edited rerun of what I posted a year ago, in 2023. What I wrote then seems to describe where we are a year later so I decided to take the week off to enjoy time with family. Here’s to summer reruns. The […]
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UNESCO World Heritage Sites
What do Independence Hall, Yosemite National Park, the Statue of Liberty, the San Antonio Missions, and the Ohio Hopewell Earthworks have in common? All are among the twenty-five UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the United States. The Hopewell Earthworks are the latest addition to the list, being officially designated as a World Heritage Site on September 19, 2023, after 17 years on the tentative site list. Shawnee Chief Glenna Wallace delivered the keynote address at […]
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